Faith In Government?

Opinion - Reader Views

February 20, 2002

I find it a constant source of amusement that the very people most critical of the job public educators do teaching reading, writing and mathematics are often the same people insisting that educators take on the role of providing religious instruction. I can only assume that they have lost faith in those institutions created for that expressed purpose.

Letter writer Paul Fisher had to reach all the way back to the 1787 Northwest Ordinance (the document that allowed for the creation of five states in the Northwest Territory) in order to make a rather specious argument supporting government-run religious schools. "Religion, morality and knowledge being necessary to good government education shall be encouraged."

If he had gone on to read the next line of the article cited, Fisher would have found the authors, apparently unconcerned with staying on topic, stated, "the utmost good faith shall always be observed towards the Indians; their lands and property shall never be taken from them without their consent; and, in their property, rights, and liberty, they shall never be invaded or disturbed."

Certainly, it would take a person of deep and abiding faith to believe that the government could do a better job with religious instruction than it did in keeping its word to Native Americans.